


nothing better

by kitseybarbours



Series: stay with me [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archive Sex, Canon Bisexual Character, Clothed Sex, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gratuitous references to Atonement (2007) dir. Joe Wright, Workplace Relationship, Workplace Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24247894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitseybarbours/pseuds/kitseybarbours
Summary: Tim and Sasha make good use of their lunch break.
Relationships: Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Series: stay with me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750270
Comments: 26
Kudos: 133





	nothing better

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am still thinking about Tim and Sasha’s excellent banter in MAG162. As will soon become very apparent, I’ve chosen to ignore the ‘won’t-they’ option inherent in a ‘will-they, won’t they’ storyline. Set in...an alternate season 2, let's say.

* * *

She gets the text mid-morning, on her second trip to the kitchen for coffee. They’ve got a lovely blend in this month, Hawaiian Hazelnut or something; Sasha thinks it’s Rosie who chose it, and she makes a mental note to pop by her desk and thank her. She’s waiting for the clunky old espresso machine to finish doing its thing when her phone buzzes in the back pocket of her corduroy skirt.

 **Tim Stoker 11.32  
**whatcha doin at lunch today

She smiles, her thumbs hovering over the keypad as she decides how to reply. She and Tim have just started to try out the whole friends-with-benefits thing, and it’s working pretty damn nicely so far. They go out for lunch once or twice a week, have pizza or Thai food at one of their flats most weekends, and, of course, have fun, silly, tender, _excellent_ sex. But beyond that—no expectations, no commitments, and none of the awkwardness that comes with a proper new relationship. It’s great, Sasha tells herself; it’s just what she wants.

 **Sasha James 11.35  
**Was gonna eat @ my desk and try and finish the chapter of MSR I’m writing lol. U?

The espresso machine belches steam and her coffee is finished. Humming, Sasha goes to the fridge for milk; her phone buzzes again as she’s stirring in the sugar, three texts in quick succession.

**Tim Stoker 11.37**

what would u say if I had a better idea  
no disrespect to special agents mildred and skeletor  
those are their names right?

She gives a little laugh and types back with one finger, laboriously, balancing her travel mug in the other hand as she heads back to her office

**Sasha James 11.38**

What kind of idea? (side-eye emoji)

**Tim Stoker 11.38**

did u just type out ‘side-eye emoji’ instead of using the side-eye emoji

**Sasha James 11.39**

Texting & walking. Don’t judge

**Tim Stoker 11.40**

i’ll come fetch u half 12  
winky face emoji

Sasha sets her coffee down on her desk and grins down at her phone. _God,_ Tim’s cute. She chucks her phone into her work bag and settles back down with a pile of statements to cross-reference, willing the next hour to go by faster so she can find out exactly what he’s got in store.

Tim doesn’t disappoint: just as promised, there’s a staccato knock at her office door at 12.30 on the dot. ‘Come in,’ she calls, locking her computer and rising from her chair, already reaching for the tweed coat hanging on its hook.

Tim pokes his head around the door. ‘Hiya, gorgeous. Don’t bother with that, we’re not going far.’

‘Oh?’ Sasha hangs the coat back up and rises on her toes to drop a quick, shy kiss on his cheek. ‘What did you have in mind?’

Tim casts a glance down the hall to either side of Sasha’s office. The door to every other office is closed—most are uninhabited, and Martin, two doors down from her, usually takes a later lunch. When Tim is satisfied the coast is clear, he leans down and stage-whispers slyly,

‘What would you say to a spot of Archive sex?’

‘Oh my _God.’_ Sasha stifles a laugh. ‘Jon would kill us.’

‘What Jon doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’

‘Aren’t there, like, _cameras?_ CCTV?’

‘Not in the Archive.’

‘Are you _sure?’_

‘Sash, Gertrude got _murdered_ in there and no one found out for ages. We’ll be fine.’ Tim places his hands on her shoulders. ‘So? What do you think?’

Sasha considers for a moment, tapping her finger to her chin and scrunching up her forehead, putting on a pantomime of deep thought because she knows it’ll drive Tim bonkers. She drags it out until he’s practically bouncing on his heels—not wanting to say anything that sounds like pressure, of course, because Tim is a gentleman and would never _make_ anyone do anything they didn’t want to do, but the way he’s vibrating fairly telegraphs the fact that of course he wants her to say yes. And she wants to, too; so she does.

‘I’m in.’

 _‘Really?’_ Tim’s exultant shout is so loud she has to shush him, shoving her hand over his mouth but unable to keep from giggling herself.

 _‘Yes,_ you maniac! Oh my God. Let’s just go before I lose my nerve.’

They link hands like schoolkids and set off snickering down the corridor to the Archive. Tim is singing under his breath—‘Ar-chive sex,’ to a tune that sounds suspiciously like a certain late-2000s rap song that Sasha has never been sure is meant to be taken seriously or not. When they reach the Archive door, Tim fishes a key out of the pocket of his jeans and slips it into the lock, easing the door open so the ancient, rusting hinges don’t squeak.

‘Where’d you get that? I still have to borrow a key from Jon if I need something in here,’ Sasha says enviously.

Tim shrugs. ‘So do I. I’ve just had this one on a bit of a, shall we say, longer-term loan.’ He gestures into the dark maw of the Archive with a flourish: ‘Shall we?’

Sasha rolls her eyes at him and follows him in. He lights the torch on his phone—‘No use turning on the light, it’ll bleed under the door and then someone’ll know we’re in here’—and leads Sasha by the hand. As ever, his grip is cool and strong, her hand feeling comfortingly small in his.

‘You’ve been using that moisturiser I bought you,’ she says approvingly.

‘It’s so nice! Now I’ve been introduced to the wonders of jasmine-scented hands, I’m never going back.’

He steps through the mazy, cluttered passages with ease and confidence, leading Sasha to wonder if he’s been exploring in here after hours with his ill-gotten key. The Archive freaks her out even at the best of times—it’s _cold,_ for one, interrupted by strange patches of hot air that serve more to unsettle than to warm. And all the filing cabinets are about a million years old, overstuffed and creaking; she’s been hit on the head by screws rusting out of their sockets more than once.

She’s lucky—first that her thick natural curls cushion the small blows, and second, that nothing heavier or more dangerous has yet lost its balance on top of her. Books and files and crumbling boxes are piled precariously atop all of the cabinets, myriad health-and-safety violations waiting to happen. _If I got knocked out in here—or worse—how long would it take for someone to find me?_

Sasha can’t help but think of poor Gertrude’s end. Shivering, she squeezes Tim’s hand and follows more closely behind him.

‘Not much farther,’ comes his reassuring voice from in front of her. ‘I know a good spot up ahead.’

‘Have you been doing reconnaissance on your lunches?’ she teases, and is not at all surprised by the nonchalant ‘Maybe’ she receives in return.

Finally, they come to a stop at Tim’s promised spot: a cosy nook created by two cabinets at right angles to one another, secluded from the rest of the Archive and the view of anyone who might happen to pass by on the main path. Sasha has to admit she’s impressed: ‘Not bad, Mr Stoker, not bad at all.’

‘Nothing but the best for you, Miss James,’ he replies, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her.

‘Wait, wait,’ she says, breaking the kiss after a few giddy seconds. ‘Let me set an alarm on my phone so we’re not back too late.’

‘Aren’t you _clever! '_

He kisses the top of her head, his hands ghosting lazily about her waist as Sasha sets an alarm for five minutes before the end of their lunch hour. Shoving it back into her pocket, she gives him a thumbs-up: ‘Let’s do this.’

‘What do you want to do? Your wish is, as ever, my command.’

Sasha considers. They’ve got a fair patch of floor space, and even a folded blanket on the ground that Sasha half-wonders if Tim snuck in here one day. There’s enough space for one of them to lie back, for sure—she could ask Tim to eat her out, or if she can ride him, or… Sasha’s eye lands on the walls of filing cabinets that surround them. They look sturdier than most of the others. She has an idea.

‘Um,’ she begins. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but, ah, you know that bit in _Atonement—’_

‘In the library?’ Tim says immediately. ‘James McAvoy—delicious—and Keira Knightley—deliciouser—up against the bookshelves? Oh, yes, I’m familiar.’ He eyes her, twinkling: ‘You wanna do that?’

Sasha grins. ‘Let’s give it a go, yeah?’

‘Sure thing, _Cecilia.’_

Tim wastes no time—that’s one of the things she likes best about him, no awkward small talk, just diving right in (with her permission, of course). He presses her back against the filing cabinet and links his fingers through hers, pinning her hands above her head as he leans down and kisses her so deeply her knees almost give out. She kisses back, her heart already pounding. He smells so _good,_ like old books and clean laundry and—yes, there—she catches a whiff of the jasmine lotion she’d bought him a bottle of, after he’d used some at her place and hadn’t been able to stop sniffing his own hands all night.

‘Pick me up,’ she whispers.

He does, hoisting her up so she can wrap her legs around his waist, with some extra wriggling to get her skirt out of the way. When she finds a spot to settle comfortably, she laughs aloud to feel Tim already hard against her: ‘That didn’t take long.’

‘What can I say? I really like Ian McEwan.’

He buries his face in her neck then, nosing beneath her turtleneck to press kisses to her skin, sucking tiny tender bruises where the shirt will cover them. She sighs, her hands roaming across his back, feeling the warmth of his skin through his creased white Oxford shirt. She trails her nails between his shoulder-blades—the place she knows he likes her to kiss, when he’s the little spoon—and she feels his hum of pleasure through her whole body.

His mouth finds hers again, and they kiss, deep and hard. Sasha’s growing wet, shivering when Tim’s clothed cock brushes against her. ‘I want you to fuck me,’ she whispers against his mouth. ‘Did you bring—?’

‘Always be prepared,’ he whispers back, in a shockingly passable American accent. With surprising dexterity he manages to keep her balanced against him while digging through his back pocket for a condom, which he then holds up for Sasha to open with her teeth. ‘Great work, team,’ says Tim, kissing her nose. ‘Gotta put you down for a second—hang on—there we are.’

They both got tested before they fucked for the first time, but the pill makes Sasha’s migraines worse, so old-school it is. Now approximately 85% more protected from any reproductive surprises, Tim picks Sasha back up and eases himself inside her. She gasps. The angle is _wonderful,_ held up like this, and there’s something massively seductive about being pinned against the filing cabinets, as though their lusts have suddenly overtaken them and they’re forsaking all their archival-assistant-ly duties to consummate their passion. (Which, Sasha reflects, they kind of are.)

‘That good, love?’

‘Yes. Oh, God, yes.’ Sasha wriggles down on him and reaches one of her hands between her legs; Tim’s too busy holding her up to be able to touch her clit. ‘Good for you?’

‘To quote the signal poet of our age, I’m feeling good as hell.’

‘Good.’ Sasha kisses him as he begins to fuck her, thrusting slowly into her as she touches herself, and then faster, harder, when she bids him. She’d piled her hair atop her head in a loose knot while she was working, but now her curls start to spill down in abundance, covering the two of them, bracketing them in their own private world. She lets herself be loud in here, moaning with abandon and telling Tim exactly what she wants and how she wants it, _harder, deeper, more,_ without worrying about keeping her voice down lest she wake one of their respective housemates. Her fingers work furiously on her clit, and the combined sensations of penetration and expert touch bring her close to the edge with incredible speed.

‘More, Tim, more,’ she murmurs against him. ‘Make me come. I want to come like this.’

‘Are you going to come for me?’ he says into her mouth, kissing her, kissing her. ‘Oh, sweetheart, that’s good, that’s so good. _You’re_ so good. I love it when I make you come.’

He holds her tightly, pressed as close inside her as he can possibly get, and Sasha wishes recklessly that they were naked so she could feel his skin on hers. It’s that thought, somehow—the thought of being totally exposed, utterly shameless, _here_ of all places—that sends her tumbling into orgasm with a cry. Her body contracts around Tim’s cock and he gives a low moan, coming inside her.

By the time Sasha’s ears have stopped ringing, she can hear that they’re both panting. She goes slack in Tim’s arms and he holds her, supported by the filing cabinet, his heart thumping against her chest. _‘God,’_ she says, when she can speak. ‘You were right. That was an _excellent_ idea.’

He presses a clumsy kiss to the side of her mouth. ‘All my ideas are excellent, Sash.’

He lets her slide to the floor, taking a moment to shake out his arms—‘I think they’re asleep. Worth it, though’—as Sasha rearranges her clothes, pulling down her skirt, smoothing it out. She wipes down her round glasses on her shirt (they _always_ get smudged, but sex contacts are just too much work), and cranes her neck to see if any hickeys are visible above her turtleneck.

‘Nope, you’re good,’ Tim says. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘I trust you.’ She looks around. ‘This was a _really_ good spot. A little too good to be true, if you know what I mean,’ she teases, poking him in the ribs.

‘What can I say?’ Tim says. ‘I have a knack for these things.’ He gives a satisfied sigh, patting the closest filing cabinet with affection. ‘You know how you said Jon would kill us for this?’

‘Er—yeah?’

Tim smiles fondly. ‘Well, funny thing is, I sucked Jon off in here once.’

Sasha shoves him. ‘You did _not.’_

‘I did! Swear.’ Tim crosses his heart. ‘Hope to die.’

‘There’s no _way._ Jon? _Our_ Jon? Our _boss,_ Jon? You’re taking the piss.’ Sasha eyes him with great suspicion, but Tim is nodding, perfectly serious. ‘You’re having me _on! How?’_

Tim bends down and whispers in her ear. Sasha’s eyebrows rise higher and higher and her hand flies up to cover her mouth. When Tim pulls back, a grin playing on his lips, she says, ‘I think…I think that actually happened.’

‘Oh, it did.’

‘But that’s _mad!_ I should _tell_ someone—not Martin, it’d break his heart—I’ll tell _Elias,_ Tim, I swear to God—’ But she’s laughing, and pushing him playfully back against the filing cabinets, and finally Tim grabs her by the waist and kisses her again.

‘You can tell whomever you like,’ Tim says against her lips. He grins, and she can feel it: ‘But no one will ever believe you.’

It’s then that Sasha’s phone alarm goes off, the _X-Files_ theme blaring into the quiet, cavernous space. Tim drops Sasha with a spluttered curse and she bursts into laughter as she fumbles to silence her phone. ‘Time’s up,’ she says. ‘Damn if we didn’t make good use of it, though.’

They set out back the way they came, Tim hooking his pinkie through the beltloop on Sasha’s skirt. He hums as they walk, obviously pleased with himself; Sasha smooths down her hair and tries to stop grinning. Wouldn’t do to run into Jon looking like she’s just been well fucked in the Archive—although apparently that’s an experience that they now share. Sasha laughs out loud at the thought, incredulous.

‘What?’ Tim says.

‘Nothing,’ says Sasha, smiling sidelong at him. ‘Just—you.’

‘I am pretty great,’ Tim allows.

‘Yeah, you are.’ Their eyes meet.

Tim clears his throat. ‘What would you say to…dinner this weekend? Like, proper dinner. Not on somebody’s shitty IKEA couch.’

‘I hope you mean _your_ couch. _My_ IKEA couch is brilliant, thank you very much.’ She winks at him. ‘But—yeah. Dinner. Proper dinner. I’d like that.’ She smiles, considering: ‘I’d like that a lot.’

‘And sex after?’ Tim asks at once.

‘Yes, Tim, and sex after.’

They’ve reached the door of the Archive. Once they cross its threshold, they’ll be back to co-workers, maintaining their professional distance even while sexting at their desks. But this weekend— _proper dinner_ —well, that suggests that they just might be on their way to something more. The more Sasha thinks about it, the more she likes that possibility.

Before opening the door, they stop and give each other a once-over: Sasha straightens Tim’s shirt, he wipes lipstick off her nose. Sasha can’t help but go up on her toes and press one last kiss to his mouth, and then she has to wipe lipstick off that, too, and by now they’re five minutes past the end of their lunch hour and they’d best get a move on before Jon goes on the warpath.

Tim squeezes Sasha’s hand, his other arm poised to push open the door. ‘Saturday night?’

‘Saturday night. I’ll see you then.’

‘Bye, Cee.’ He waggles his eyebrows.

‘Bye, Robbie.’ She blows him a kiss, and then he disappears down the corridor, whistling all the way.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Whatever you do, _absolutely do not_ think about how Tim first knew it was Not-Sasha when he called her 'Cecilia' and she looked at him blankly. Don't think about it, I'm telling you. Also, Mildred and Skeletor are what my best friend and I have called Mulder and Scully for...far too long now. We don't know, either.
> 
> Title from [Nothing Better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiFLQklABUg) by the Postal Service. Many thanks to [Robin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_omulus/pseuds/r_omulus) for sharing her headcanons with me, and to [Tatum](https://twitter.com/Tatumsdrawing) for letting me borrow their wonderful [Tim design](https://twitter.com/Tatumsdrawing/status/1261907854002290688)! I’m [saintmontague](https://twitter.com/saintmontague) on Twitter.


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